Heart Walk unfolds in Mount Olive
By Steve Herring
Published in News on October 18, 2014 10:34 PM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Zephyr Cazeault, 9, of Goldsboro, leads off the Mount Olive Area Heart Walk Saturday. Close to 150 people, including her grandfather, Jerry Cazeault, left, walked to raise funds for the American Heart Association.
MOUNT OLIVE -- Just days after 9-year-old Zephyr Cazeault was told she would not need any more surgeries for a congenital heart defect, she was ready to tackle Saturday's three-mile Heart Walk.
But she wasn't walking for herself.
"I am walking for my baby brother Jeremey," she said. "He died in my mother's stomach, and I am walking in tribute to him. He would be four years old now. If my baby brother can hear me now from heaven, I love him."
Zephyr said she was glad the money raised at the event goes to the American Heart Association.
"Because baby kids out there are going to die, so that is why I am trying to come here and help," she said.
Similar stories were shared by most of the nearly 150 people who turned out for the annual Mount Olive Heart Walk Saturday morning.
The walk attracted 22 teams -- some wearing custom T-shirts.
The back of Zephyr's had a large hand-drawn heart and the message, "Help a kid have a heart like mine."
Prior to the walk, several people, including Zephyr, talked about the impact of heart disease on their lives.
Zephyr suffers from tetralogy of Fallot, caused by a combination of four heart defects that are present at birth that affect the structure of the heart, cause oxygen-deficient blood to flow out of the heart and into the rest of the body.
"It affects one in 10,000 babies," her grandfather, Jerry Cazeault, said. "We went to the heart doctor last Thursday and he said no more surgeries. It is looking good."
"I made it in a golf cart," Zephyr said after the walk. "I feel good."
The event was planned and executed under the leadership of Rhonda Myers, Stan Ricker and Peggy Hester, but the individual teams had been fundraising for some time prior to the walk.
In September, they all came together for Open House for Heart, an event that generated roughly $2,000. The historic Flowers-Wooten-Holmes House in downtown Mount Olive was open for public tours, with refreshments for sale and a silent auction generating funds for the American Heart Association.
The Mount Olive Area Heart Walk has been held in Mount Olive since the 1970s, when Mrs. Hester and her late mother, Polly Waters, started it. It has generated several hundred thousand dollars over the years.